Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#101

Post by nnnnni » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 11:46 PM UTC

wwweston wrote: post #100

hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #24

Because elections are a poor way to elect competent people, overall? The best democratic system in the world won't help anything if the population is not educated or interested enough to make an informed decision. Democracy itself is distorted because it doesn't thrive for optimal solutions, instead, it thrives to please the people. The people who get elected are detached from the population to begin with. Being a "p…

> Being a "politician" is a full-time job. That's absurd. Really? Representing thousands (if not hundreds of thousands or millions) of people and sorting/synthesizing policy suggestions to try and come up with something that will (a) work in constituent interests (b) will fly with some majority well enough to make it happen -- it's somehow "absurd" that this might conceivably take up 40+ hours a week? A lack of infor…

Being a politician != representing thousands (or more) of people.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#102

Post by justin » Thu, Sep 06, 2012, 11:49 PM UTC

If you are going in for heart surgery, you probably want a team of surgeons and anaesthesiologists to perform your operation. You wouldn't want a team of lawyers to do it -- you would die.

It boggles the mind that we don't hold the same standards for decision making in our government: environmental policy is decided by a team of lawyers, military spending is decided by lawyers, security policy is decided by lawyers.

Certainly good rhetoric and being able to engender passion in the populace has it's place, but I'm hard pressed to believe that 99% of the elected leadership positions in government should be occupied by people with primarily those skill sets.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#103

Post by HarryHirsch » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:06 AM UTC

aswanson wrote: post #47

enraged_camel wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those individuals are using science to support their pre-existing narrowmindedness, stubbornness, and extremism. Science is not making them those things. On the contrary, the fundamentals of science lie in questioning pre-conceived notions in the face of findings that conflict them. This is how scientific progress is made.

Right. No point of conflict there. All I'm saying is that many technically trained and minded people, in the arena of dealing with human/political issues, seem to rely on idealizations, not unlike mathematical models, when in truth they are too complicated to be represented as such. Maybe the prediliction for mathematics and science betrays a deeper desire for a clean, concise, comprehensible truth, which rarely exis…

Every physical scientist has learned very early in their career that nature does not care about what it ought to be like or what ought to work out. Hell, every experiment one designs ought to work fine the first time every time, and your pet theory ought to work out. But it isn't like that, in that line of work you have pragmatism beaten into you, and that is what is missing from contemporary American politics.

Maybe it's different with computer scientists, who live up there in the realm of pure thought and can bend reality to their will.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#104

Post by HarryHirsch » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:08 AM UTC

GavinB wrote: post #17

The biggest barrier to mounting a credible election campaign is getting funding. Scientists are good at getting funding when it comes to writing grant applications, but raising real money in most elections means spending a couple hours every night of the campaign calling people and begging for money. They don't talk about this and you don't see it on TV, but that's actually the biggest challenge most new candidates f…

> Most scientists just aren't going to be successful in that environment.

That's why university presidents are paid small fortunes.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#105

Post by antidoh » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:08 AM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #26

I think a more interesting question is: why do Americans elect Lawyers? It's the most common profession in Congress (not including the self-referential "politics" answer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Members_of_the_111th_United_Sta... ). Both presidential candidates are Harvard Law students as well. I understand why Lawyers would want to become Lawmakers. I don't understand however such an unpopular field manages to g…

We elect lawyers because they're good at talking us into it. They're advocates.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#106

Post by waterlesscloud » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:09 AM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #60

aswanson wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right. No point of conflict there. All I'm saying is that many technically trained and minded people, in the arena of dealing with human/political issues, seem to rely on idealizations, not unlike mathematical models, when in truth they are too complicated to be represented as such. Maybe the prediliction for mathematics and science betrays a deeper desire for a clean, concise, comprehensible truth, which rarely exis…

I think the main benefit is that a scientist elected to a political office would make decisions based on real data when possible. Obviously it is often times not possible - for example, you can't use science to determine whether you should take a pro-life stance or a pro-choice stance - but the insistence on using numbers would greatly simplify many decisions.

If a scientist made decisions based on real data, wouldn't they conclude that the approach used by the current politicians is superior for the purposes of politics?

The data says it works, after all.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#107

Post by mynameishere » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:11 AM UTC

tokenadult wrote: post #2

From the opinion piece kindly submitted here, which is by mathematician and popular author on mathematics John Allen Paulos: "I’ve visited Singapore a few times in recent years and been impressed with its wealth and modernity. I was also quite aware of its world-leading programs in mathematics education and naturally noted that one of the candidates for president was Tony Tan, who has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics.…

People from Singapore are so ethnically diverse that Singapore has four official languages

#1 Language and ethnicity are not the same. #2 Singapore is 74 percent Chinese. Do a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of research before copy-pasting nonsense. Leterally, 10 seconds of research would be plenty.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Singapore

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#108

Post by logn » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:26 AM UTC

sukuriant wrote: post #90

vectorbunny wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found this hard to believe, but: Arkansas, Article 19, Section 1: No person who denies the being of a God shall hold any office in the civil departments of this State, nor be competent to testify as a witness in any Court. Maryland, Article 37: That no religious test ought ever to be required as a qualification for any office of profit or trust in this State, other than a declaration of belief in the existence of G…

Just ... wow. Whatever your religious stance, the United States rests on a continent that was colonized with flight from religious persecution as one of its FOUNDING reasons. I'm surprised that such requirements are listed, period. It seems like they danced around http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_religious_test_clause with their wording by simply declaring an entire binding philosophy of people [a]theist and [a]gnosti…

It makes some sense. America was founded on the belief that we (or at that time at least white, male property owners) were endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights. It was only by appealing to a greater power that we could essentially describe human rights and the need for limited government and individual liberty.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#109

Post by Zakharov » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:26 AM UTC

lmkg wrote: post #15

At least part of the problem is structural. One contributing factor could be that the US uses direct regional elections, instead of a parliamentary system. In a parliamentary system, the people vote on a party, rather than a person, and the party decides the individuals who get elected. There's less of an emphasis on individual charisma, and charismatic leaders only need appear at the top of the ticket. A party with…

In Australia people vote for individual members, but most do so based on party affiliation. The members available to vote for are chosen by the parties. Candidates seem to be chosen more based on factional loyalty than on expertise; unless someone's on the front bench they don't do anything but provide a vote. This leads to Australia having relatively more career politicians in parliament than the US does.

Re: Why Don’t Americans Elect Scientists?

#110

Post by Zakharov » Fri, Sep 07, 2012, 12:30 AM UTC

justin wrote: post #102

If you are going in for heart surgery, you probably want a team of surgeons and anaesthesiologists to perform your operation. You wouldn't want a team of lawyers to do it -- you would die. It boggles the mind that we don't hold the same standards for decision making in our government: environmental policy is decided by a team of lawyers, military spending is decided by lawyers, security policy is decided by lawyers.…

The people who acquire power tend to be those skilled at acquiring power.

To be more accurate, those who acquire power tend to be those who are good at acquiring power under the system for doing so. Existing political systems favor the most charismatic politicians. What system would encourage the most able technocrats, instead of the most ruthless? This isn't a rhetorical question.